Chinese Engine Development

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The JiuZhai high pass jet engine is said to be as advanced as its western counterpart.

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Aviation industry flies into future

English.news.cn 2012-11-15 11:34:05



Astronauts Jing Haipeng (in the aviation simulator), Liu Wang (second left, second row) and Liu Yang (central, second row) try the aviation simulator of the Lieying L15 advanced trainer at the Ninth China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, on Wednesday. (Source: Chinadaily/Chen Liang)

BEIJING, Nov.15 (Xinhuanet) -- China's national aviation manufacturer has launched a long-term plan spanning until 2030 to develop advanced aviation engines.


Senior executives of Aviation Industry Corp of China claim they have set aside 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) for the first phase of the three-part plan, which will fund the research and development of engines until 2015.

"Our aviation engine operation consists of four parts, which means when we are manufacturing the current engines, we also actively develop next-generation engines and explore the technologies of more-advanced ones," said Zhang Jian, deputy general manager of AVIC Engine Holdings.

"The United States has been striving to make sure it leads by at least 20 years in the aviation engine industry. For us, the company has made a comprehensive plan through 2030, including the technological targets we shall have achieved by that year and the amount of money we will possibly invest," Zhang told China Daily on the sidelines of the Ninth China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, also known as Zhuhai Airshow, which runs from Tuesday to Sunday in Guangdong province.

"Now most of the engines used by the People's Liberation Army air force are manufactured in China," he said, adding that in order to catch up with the latest and most advanced aviation engines, the AVIC has a plan that can be broken down into three phases.

"During the first phase, which will conclude by the end of 2015 if everything goes well, we will strive to ensure our air force's aircraft be equipped with proper engines and to lift our development capability to that of the developed countries' level in the 1980s. The second phase will witness us substantially narrowing the technological gap between developed countries and us. And by the end of the last phase, our engines will be as advanced as theirs."

"Aviation engine development combines a high concentration of various advanced technologies; therefore, only the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council have the ability to develop aviation engines," said Li Fangyong, executive vice-president of Aviation Industry Corp of China.

"Developing aviation engines requests a nation to possess solid scientific and technological capabilities and a strong industrial manufacturing establishment. Unfortunately, China is comparatively weak in these regards."

Li said China failed to pay enough attention to the theoretical research of aviation engines in the past and it was not uncommon that only after a new aircraft had begun to be developed that the engine's development was hastily launched.

"We have also realized that although our investment is tremendous, it is far from sufficient, so we hope private businesses will engage in aviation engines' development," he said.

The development of a reliable engine needs a great number of experiments and tests that China was not able to conduct, according to Li. He attributed the problem to technological obstacles as well as the lack of adequate funding.

Zhang also mentioned some problems are still haunting the industry.

"Our engines' stability still needs improvement and the quality of production materials are not so satisfactory. We will spare no efforts in enhancing the quality of our products.

"In the near future, we will make sure that all of the PLA air force's third-generation aircraft use domestically developed engines," he said, confirming the AVIC is developing engines for China's stealth jet fighters.

The Jiuzhai engine, which was first made public by AVIC in Zhuhai on Tuesday and is designed to be used on business jets, can operate for as long as 20,000 hours, according to Li Xiaoming, chief designer of Jiuzhai at AVIC Gas Turbine Establishment.

The new engine is very reliable and as technologically advanced as its competitors in developed countries, he said.
"Our ultimate goal is to guarantee that China can develop its own aviation industry without being disrupted or contained by anyone else," Zhang said.

(Source: chinadaily)
 

tphuang

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It might be true what you say that China ordered 410 engines in just two years (to be delivered in full in 2015) however i have a different read to the reason than you. To me China is simply replacing old AL-31 engines in her fleet as of now China has about 260 J-10, 100 SU-30MKK, 70 SU-27SK, 100 older J-11/J-11A that is about 530 planes in the PLAAF fleet that uses some version of the AL-31. And since China is intensifying the training of its pilots it means that they need more replacement for their engines and other spare parts.

The Shenyang J-11B and J-11BS is in full production with WS-10A and all of the new projects like the J-10B J-15, J-16 and even the J-20 are all testing with the WS-10A.

As for the WS-10A whatever the truth is China has to start from somewhere but if China keeps importing and using foreign engines for its new planes then China will never be able to master the technology of turbofan engines.

china ordering 410 al-31 actually shows how unreliable and short lived the Russian engines are. 300 hours was what China was getting with AL-31 when they first got them.

300 hours was the MTBO for WS-10A when it first started production. It's better now, but still got a long to go. This kind of stuff will improve over time. I need to find the table I got of WS-10A MTBO times.

The Jiuzhai engine, which was first made public by AVIC in Zhuhai on Tuesday and is designed to be used on business jets, can operate for as long as 20,000 hours, according to Li Xiaoming, chief designer of Jiuzhai at AVIC Gas Turbine Establishment.

The new engine is very reliable and as technologically advanced as its competitors in developed countries, he said."Our ultimate goal is to guarantee that China can develop its own aviation industry without being disrupted or contained by anyone else," Zhang said.


The modifications to the AL-31F/FN P.2 series engine increase its operational limits by more than 65 per cent - from 900 to 1,500 flight hours, according to the privately owned Centre for the Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST).

AVIC Engine propaganda on overdrive. These guys are seriously shameless. Even when Liming couldn't mass produce FWS-10, they were still boasting about it on those AVIC articles.

There are plenty of commentaries on Chinese bbs that debunked this claim that Sichuan's AL-31 MRO plant was anything special.
 

asif iqbal

Lieutenant General
considering theres over 200+ WS10 engines in operation it probably isnt a issue as much as people maybe like to think

those engines have probably given back lots and lots of data and information, which is pooled back and used for further analysis

if WS10 was problematic i dont think they would put it on all new fighters like J15, J15S and J10B etc even J20 the top PLAAF aircraft is using varient of WS10 so means it must be doing something right

there is no question turbofan engines has given China a tough fight, but if you spend enough time, money and resources will solve the problem

trubofan technology is like the sweet sceince, cant be easily replicated, even just replacing and manufacturing the fan blades requires considerable technological equipments, Roll Royce has a project on high performance fan blades that are coated with platinum, its not just a dip in liquid platinum, its a very very fine spray which has been modeled which sprays down the fan blades with a coating of precious metal, the coating is so thin around um range, after this process the coating thickness is determined using Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy which is a extremely sophisticated analytical method which can check for the coating thickness, one of my friends did his PhD in the just spray modeling part, that was 4 years of work, so this gives you a idea of the kind of resources, talent and technology needed for turbofan blades, not even the entire engine, anyone who has ever worked in turbofan technology will tell you
 

weig2000

Captain
I think people need to have realistic expectations with regard to aircraft engine industry. It's a very complex and process-intensive industry. Having the design right and prototype working do not mean you will necessarily churn out good quality engine off the assembly line immediately. It's different from assembling televisions or iphones.

I think a lot of know-how and tacit knowledge can only be developed and learned by actually doing it. China does not have much experiences in producing advanced engines. It just takes time and there is no short-cut.

A few anecdotes. I used to do consulting work for a major western jet engine manufacturer (not engine product related). The production lead time for some of the more important components and sub-assembly are almost as long as a year. Their people told me that they know some of the very exclusive suppliers in the world to make certain parts, which is considered to be a competitive advantage for them. A while back, I was reading the interview with the chief designer of KJ-2000 AESA. He talked about their experience working and collaborating with Israel and one of very important lesson they learned from Israel is the quality control of producing T/R modules in large numbers.

I suspect WS-10a is undergoing a similar process: its production rate is limited due to the complex process and long lead time; its reliability has improved but may still have minor issues here and there. It will be a continual struggle. There is no substitute for real experience.

If the problem is related to organizational and production assembly factors, then you simply don't get anywhere by sitting on your hands while you try to figure things out in a laboratory. It sounds like the problems are not related to design but execution, and there is absolutely no way to troubleshoot and improve upon execution except to go through the process, find the bugs, and fix them.
 

tphuang

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I think people need to have realistic expectations with regard to aircraft engine industry. It's a very complex and process-intensive industry. Having the design right and prototype working do not mean you will necessarily churn out good quality engine off the assembly line immediately. It's different from assembling televisions or iphones.

I think a lot of know-how and tacit knowledge can only be developed and learned by actually doing it. China does not have much experiences in producing advanced engines. It just takes time and there is no short-cut.

A few anecdotes. I used to do consulting work for a major western jet engine manufacturer (not engine product related). The production lead time for some of the more important components and sub-assembly are almost as long as a year. Their people told me that they know some of the very exclusive suppliers in the world to make certain parts, which is considered to be a competitive advantage for them. A while back, I was reading the interview with the chief designer of KJ-2000 AESA. He talked about their experience working and collaborating with Israel and one of very important lesson they learned from Israel is the quality control of producing T/R modules in large numbers.

I suspect WS-10a is undergoing a similar process: its production rate is limited due to the complex process and long lead time; its reliability has improved but may still have minor issues here and there. It will be a continual struggle. There is no substitute for real experience.

From what I know, production rate is no longer an issue. The issue in the beginning was with quality from mass production. Now, its reliability has reached acceptable level for PLA. So while there is improvement needed, I think you need to be careful about making statements like "production rate is limited".
 

TyroneG

Banned Idiot
AVIC Engine propaganda on overdrive. These guys are seriously shameless. Even when Liming couldn't mass produce FWS-10, they were still boasting about it on those AVIC articles.

There are plenty of commentaries on Chinese bbs that debunked this claim that Sichuan's AL-31 MRO plant was anything special.


They are in overdrive cause the Chinese government ready to pump in additional 100Billion Yuan into AVIC Jet Engine Division.
With that money, they better be able to supply engines for 4th generation fighters which the government banking on.
 

Navigator

New Member
i also doubt the veracity of this report, taking into account past experience with russian sources. Without chinese sources, this news is not credible to me. Almost all the J11b use WS-10. The 2 facts dont mix.

MTBO of WS-10A = 300 hours, it's quite acceptable for mass production planes with this engines. For example, the first series of AL-31F engines in mid 80s has service life limit is only 100 hours. AL-31F, which were installed on the Su-27SK\Su-27UBK\Su-33 have a MTBO = 300 hours and service life is 900 hours.
 

flateric

Junior Member
I am not familiar with CAST. Rosoboronexport as the official export arm agency for Russia can also make nationalistic and unreliable report, like the Su-33 purchase and Su-35 purchase by Chinese last 2 years ago which turn out totally just fantasy. What's makes us think CAST will be different?
I will treat this report as BS.
You are treating all the Russian sources all alike? Very funny.
And do you have reliable proof that there were no any negotiations on Su-33 and Su-35S purchase?

BTW, news from Zhuhai
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Hyperwarp

Captain
IIRC when the WS-10 1st flew with the J-11B MTBO was less than 50 (or was it 70?) YIKES! All planes grounded and replaced with AL-31F cannibalized from the very 1st Su-27SK batch. The WS-10 came back to the J-11B after increasing the the MTBO to 300 - 500. I have never heard of a value greater than 500h for the WS-10. So what flateric/CAST is saying is not far off.

Plus, if J-11B and its variants are not meeting PLAAF requirements then they'll have to look for other options including imports. Buying Su-35 just to get 117S sounds really inefficient but buying Su-35 because SAC is unable delivery a product the PLAAF need is another story.
 

Lion

Senior Member
You are treating all the Russian sources all alike? Very funny.
And do you have reliable proof that there were no any negotiations on Su-33 and Su-35S purchase?

BTW, news from Zhuhai
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If you are an aviation watcher. This is the third time Russian mention about China interested buying Su-35 but the first 2 are prove to be fake. Aren't you Russian tired? You still want an third time?

If you noticed, all the while is Russian taking the initiative. Russian minister even need to come to China to negotiate the deal? Looks like China is not a very good buyer if they are sincere about acquiring SU-35.

I got a feeling, its all the while Russian trying to shove the product to China.
 
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